[for the recently reboooted Shuffle Demons, Toronto’s Bop-Rap Sax Jazz ensemble, who I saw last at the Town Pump in the early 1990’s, before seeing them at their triumphant return at the Vancouver Jazz Festival during their 2004 tour.]

When the bouncing stops…

When the bouncing stops
and the giggling
and the sweat stops dripping
off eyebrows onto cheeks

And the saxophones
are seeking their velvet beds
we amble in a high
a stupor
a meandering
still on the dance floor
wondering when slam dancing
became called moshing

Our breathing slows and steadies
our triceps suddenly become strangely chilled
and the hoopy froods
in the long bright get-ups
and shades and berets
and long thin beards and burns
do more grinning
than people should be legally allowed to do

And we’re locked in place
on the dance floor
unable unwilling uncaring to move
as if there’d be yet another encore
when they’ve already packed up their gear

Lights coming up
leads to drive-by bouncers mumbling
“Time to go home”
leads to them playing Trooper’s
“We’re Here for a Good Time, Not a Long Time”
leads to direct statements from said bouncers
politely
that we DO need to go now
yeah, whatever
we’re braindead
decisiveness having fled long ago
as the orgy of the layered saxes
crushed our will
which we were happy to have gone
frankly

Left standing on the sidewalk
—how we got there I’ll NEVer know
we wouldn’t know that later in the 1990’s
the Demons would do some sort of reunion tour
of lower Ontario
and play goodbye to the “Spadina Bus”
and scream “Out of my House, Roach”

We wouldn’t know enough to cherish that era
until 2002 rolls around

Maybe it was the palindrome of 2002 itself
that brought our own Spadina Bus back online
but ultimately
days are numbers
and if I can keep at least one percent
of my will in play today
I won’t forget to cherish
my todays
because they’re as fleeting
as the wisps of low cloud
ducking under the cover
of the high puffy ones
that make the six o’clock news

Copyright 2002, Stephen Buckley
07.31.02